Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

“I’ll ask again, one last time, who told you to follow me?” I said. “Otherwise your mother is going to be a very unhappy woman.”

“The man you were drinking with in the bar,” he said. “The Chechen. He wanted to know where you were staying—gave me five hundred dirhams to follow you and find out.”

I nodded. I’d had an idea it might be Kulayev, either working on his own behalf or following Tynaliev’s orders to keep an eye on me.

I pocketed his gun. You never know when a spare comes in useful, and I didn’t know anything about the history of the Makarov, whether it was hot or not.

“Think of this as your lucky day or me as your favorite uncle. You get to go home tonight, and not wearing a shroud.”

He nodded, wiped his hands on his jeans.

“I suggest you go on holiday tomorrow, come back in a couple of weeks.”

I took a step back from him, raised my gun again, watched him hold his hands up in front of his face, as if he could ward off a bullet.

“I tell you now: if I see you again, I’m going to kill you. When I’ve done that, I might pay a visit to your family as well. After all, one of these carries eight rounds. That should sort out any ideas your brothers might have of avenging your death.”

The boy nodded again, to show he understood. It was all bluff of course, but it never hurts to give someone pause for thought. I gestured toward the street with my Makarov.

“Now fuck off.” I gave his ankle a little reminder of what I could do with my feet. He was too scared even to cry out, just hobbled away, looking back over his shoulder, in case I changed my mind.

“Tell Kulayev I’m staying at the Denver Hotel.”

I didn’t bother to tell him which room I had, just in case distance gave him back his courage and he found another gun and bullets from somewhere. I put the Makarov away, the weight reassuring in my pocket, and headed for the Denver. I’d deal with Kulayev in the morning.

The air conditioning in my room wheezed and rattled like an old man with emphysema, spitting out an occasional gust of lukewarm air. The mattress had been designed to show just how sharp and painful bedsprings could be, while a collection of stains hinted at brief and casual encounters. Getting a decent night’s sleep was as likely as me tracking down Natasha Sulonbekova and persuading her to give up the memory stick.

After a couple of hours trying and failing to beat the mattress into submission, I gave up and sat down on the stained chair by the window. I told myself it couldn’t have been any dirtier than the sheets. I lit a cigarette, watched the blue smoke flutter and weave in the air conditioning. I wondered if there was a pattern emerging in my stay in Dubai, one that would become apparent in the next couple of days. I knew I couldn’t trust Kulayev. My evening encounter with the boy assassin might just have been him checking up on me, but I could have had a bullet lodged firmly in my spine, and I didn’t much care for that.

I was pretty certain that Tynaliev had lied to me, maybe not about his mistress, but about what she’d stolen from him. The talk of secret treaties and foreign powers was so obviously bullshit that I knew I’d be in the firing line once I discovered the true story and got back to Bishkek. My educated guess was that it was about money, bribes, pay-offs, foreign bank accounts. Corruption; it’s one of the few things we do well in Kyrgyzstan. Someone like Tynaliev scooped up more than his fair share, and he didn’t spend it all on plastic breasts.

I let my mind wander; no point in making wild guesses until I’d found out more. So I thought about Chinara and the years we’d had together before the cancer devoured her. Summer weekend trips to Lake Issyk-Kul, swimming in the clear water before opening the bottles of beer we’d put there to cool. Eating pelmini dumplings dipped in a chili sauce that burned our mouths, or giant skewers of lamb shashlik from one of the roadside stalls. Watching her lying on our bed, engrossed in the Russian poetry she loved. And always the laughter, the shared glances, the knowledge, certain and unshakeable, that we’d always be together.

I thought about the unfairness of her death, about the anger I’d felt ever since I stood by her graveside up in the mountains, in the middle of a Kyrgyz winter that had ripped out my heart. I thought about how I’d turned that anger against myself and against the world, killing in a search for justice.

And I knew there would be no peace for me, no place in the world, as long as I let that anger rule my heart.

Dawn trudged up the sky, slowly at first, then speeding up as if afraid of being caught. What little breeze there had been during the night had long since died of exhaustion, and the air was a thick and muddy soup.

I showered, came out of the tiny bathroom, immediately drenched in sweat, needing another shower. I ran my hand over my chin—no reason to shave, maybe the hard man look would prove useful. I tucked the Makarov under my shirt, hid the other gun behind the wardrobe. The mirror told me I looked worn, my back told me I was wearing out. It was going to be a long and brutal day.

Kulayev had told me about a restaurant that served Uzbek food up by the dry docks; nothing fancy but the closest I was going to find to home cooking. I ordered a glass of chai and chicken samsi , surprised to find traditional dishes like manti and pelmeni on the menu. Clearly I was going to become a regular customer. The waitress wore a colorful headscarf and a colorless expression, as if serving a Kyrgyz was going to be the low point of her day. No love lost between Kyrgyz and Uzbek, especially not since the rioting in Osh a few years ago. It was one of the reasons I’d never visited Saltanat in Tashkent; I had a pretty good idea what sort of welcome a Bishkek ex-cop would get from the Uzbek authorities.

I stirred a spoonful of raspberry jam into my tea, sipped to savor the sweetness. It was a taste of home, of spring mornings up in the mountains, where your breath steamed in the air, of long evenings smoking and talking with old friends in the Derevyashka Bar. My second day in Dubai and I was already homesick.

Kulayev arrived just after I’d finished my second cup, looking hungover. I waved to him, beckoning him to join me. He sat down, ordered chai , rubbed his face. I winked at him, all boys together. “So how was last night, then?”

He gave a bitter grunt.

“Useless. She got undressed, must have taken a kilo of paper tissues out of her bra. I’ve got bigger tits than she has. Then she just lay there like a sack of potatoes. Finally kicked her out at four in the morning. Total waste of five hundred dirhams.”

I patted him on the shoulder with my right hand, used my left under the table to place the gun tight against his groin. The look of fear on his face was very gratifying, almost making up for having had virtually no sleep.

“Well, while you were playing hide the horse-meat sausage, I encountered your young friend. And his gun. So I want to know what’s going on, and if you don’t tell me, last night will be the last time you ever get laid.”

The waitress brought over another teapot, and I gave her a reassuring smile.

“ Spasibo ,” I said, not expecting or receiving a response. Kulayev started to wriggle in his seat, but a jab from my Makarov soon set him straight.

“What’s the story with the boy?” I said.

“Inspector,” Kulayev said, his eyes staring into mine, “you’re a lone wolf, everyone knows that. You’ve got your own ideas about right and wrong, and they might not meet with approval from the top. The word is you don’t obey orders when they don’t suit you.”